A Bit of This and a Bit of That

I have set the Funnel Trap a couple of times here recently with limited success. Last Wednesday I caught 18 birds; all Silvereye with 9 new and 9 recaps. I set it again yesterday and again caught 18 birds; 15 Silvereye, 10 new and 5 recaps as well as 1 new Dunnock, Greenfinch and House Sparrow. A bit like I was worried that would happen to the Blackcaps (NZ's cricket team) - both sessions were stopped by rain.

A couple of Recoveries.

Yesterday I received two recovery reports from the Banding Office. One was a Blackbird that had been banded at our Island Bay site in Jan 2014 as a juvenile and recovered dead on the other side of the valley.

The other was a colour banded Tui found dead in Northland (a Wellington suburb). It had been banded at the Karori Cemetery in July 08. It was seen feeding on sugar water in Roseneath on the other side of the City in Nov & Dec 09. Subsequently it must have moved back across the city to where it was found. The owner of the property reports that it was resident there when they moved into the property back in February.

A file photo of a colour banded Tui, but not either of the ones mentioned

An Old Tui.

Although this is not one of ours I have had an interesting report from Ralph this morning about a resighting of a colour banded Tui. This was of a bird from a study he did in Southland in the early 1990's. It had been banded 16 Dec 2004, at 3817 days from banding it is about 3 weeks longer than our oldest Tui here in Wellington which is 3797 days from banding. We have a Blackbird that was longer at 4021 days and a Silvereye that was exactly the same, 3817 days. Ralph's Tui was originally fitted with a radio transmitter which hasn't appeared to have affected it's survival at all.